The Jeffersonian phrase "that all men are created equal" is glorified in America and at the same time mocked by history. This hypocrisy has existed since the birth of the nation in 1776. Through most of American History, Black Americans have been relegated to the level of second-rank citizens by no fault of their own. Langston Hughes, 1902-1967, was one Black American that recorded the struggles of his contemporaries through poetry.
In 1949, five years before the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision on the BROWN versus TOPEKA BOARD OF EDUCATION case, Hughes published Visitors to the Black Belt and Democracy. The narrators in Visitors to the Black Belt and Democracy directly and overtly express frustration with their current social and political situation, respectively. The issue of civil rights had faded from the forefront of the national scene following World War II, but there was plenty of coal on the civil rights fire within black communities.
Through the use of Jim Crow laws, intimidation and terrorism, black involvement in politics was eradicated in the South. Furthermore, as Herbert Gains observed, political machines of the North ñgerrymandered [black] ghetto neighborhoods so that they would not have to share their power with the Negroes.î Forced from institutional America, a majority of blacks did not have an easily accessible and effective outlet at their disposal to demand progress on the issue of civil rights. This situation persisted throughout much of the first half of the twentieth century. Angered by the absence of a political voice, the narrator in Democracy proclaims,
Democracy will not come Today, this year nor ever Through compromise and fear. (2104)
Moreover, the narrator of Democracy is not provided with a racial or gender identity. One possible explanation could be that Hughes recognized many parallels between the struggle of both women and minorities. Hence, by failing to disclose the narrator, more people may be able to identify with poem.
Before the civil rights movement had an opportunity to make institutional changes in the American political system, clientage politics provided a few black individuals the advantage of indirectly participating in politics. In clientage politics, prominent blacks would rely on personal links with influential and powerful white patrons in order to promote their own agendas. However, for most blacks, such associations were not the norm. Black neighborhoods were often separated both economically and geographically from their white counterparts. The poem Visitors to the Black Belt dramatizes the disunion of racial neighborhoods. The narrator notes how individuals from outside communities use landmarks and geography as discerning characteristics for the location of black neighborhoods. The narrator goes even further in referring to a visitor as an "outsider" (2104).
Provided with an outline of one historical perspective of the late 1940's black movement, the poetry of Hughes provides the reader with the emotions of a struggle. One can only hope that history limits the number of poets whose personal experiences motivate similar writings.
